“The Administration’s proposal maintains its inaccurate distinction among religious ministries.

“It appears to offer second-class status to our first-class institutions in Catholic health care, Catholic education and Catholic charities.

“HHS offers what it calls an ‘accommodation’ rather than accepting the fact that these ministries are integral to our church and worthy of the same exemption as our Catholic churches.”

“And finally, it seems to take away something that we had previously—the ability of an exempt employer (such as a diocese) to extend its coverage to the employees of a ministry outside the exemption.”

The more you look at the latest HHS ‘accommodation’ the more you realize that the only answer is its full repeal.

And Cardinal Dolan also stood up for the First Amendment rights of Catholics in the business world.

“[T]he bishops explained that the ‘HHS mandate creates still a third class, those with no conscience protection at all: individuals who, in their daily lives, strive constantly to act in accordance with their faith and moral values.’

“This includes employers sponsoring and subsidizing the coverage, insurers writing it, and beneficiaries paying individual premiums for it. Friday’s action confirms that HHS has no intention to provide any exemption or accommodation at all to this ‘third class.’

“In obedience to our Judeo-Christian heritage, we have consistently taught our people to live their lives during the week to reflect the same beliefs that they proclaim on the Sabbath. We cannot now abandon them to be forced to violate their morally well-informed consciences.”

Bravo, Cardinal Dolan!

Here’s what he had to say:

Does health care reform mean forcing family businesses run by Christians to pay for drugs and procedures they believe are immoral, including drugs like the “morning after pill,” Plan B, and Ella, a derivative of the abortion drug RU-486? Are life-ending drugs more important than life-saving ones?

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the answer is yes.

Read the rest of Kennedy’s op-ed over at washingtonpost.com.

Organizer Joe Grabowski from StandWithHobbyLobby.com is calling on “all Americans who value freedom of religion and oppose the HHS mandate’s unfair impositions” to “show their support for Hobby Lobby by shopping either at their local retail Hobby Lobby store or online.”

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee took to his Facebook page and expressed his support for the event, arguing that when it comes to defending religious liberty, “we will either stand together or fall together. I choose to stand.”

Hobby Lobby Appreciation Day, as it is affectionately being called, is a response to recent rulings by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor that denied Hobby Lobby’s request to opt out of providing abortion-inducing drugs to their roughly 13,000 employees.

By not complying with the onerous HHS mandate, Hobby Lobby may face up to $1.3 million in fines PER DAY. Regardless, Kyle Duncan, who is representing the company on behalf of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, insists Hobby Lobby will not comply with the mandate.

You can add your name to the petition by clicking here.

h/t Steven Ertelt

The Little Sisters of the Poor, first recognized as a Pontifical Institute by Pope Pius XI on July 9, 1854, is a religious congregation dedicated to the care of the elderly poor. According to their website, this mission means that the sisters “welcome them into our homes, form one family with them, accompany them from day to day and care for them with love and respect until God calls them home.”

In the United States alone, the Little Sisters operate 33 homes where the elderly poor are cared for. They also carry out their apostolate in some additional 30 countries around the world. The Sisters are mendicant — they beg for their funding and resources — and yet despite the financial difficulties inherent in such a charism, the order continues to carry out its important work. They make no distinction among those they care for. They are of every race and creed. They also employ support staff from across the spectrum of belief.

Which means that they have no chance at an exemption from the HHS mandate. They will be forced to provide health insurance that covers contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortifacient drugs, or face crippling fines.  Neither option is viable for the Little Sisters, so those who will be penalized are their employees, and more importantly, the elderly so in need of their care.

This past Sunday, the Little Sisters of the Poor were invited to speak at Masses in our area. Their message? If something doesn’t change, they will be forced to leave the United States, as they have left other countries (such as China) where religious persecution has made it impossible for them to operate ethically.

When the sister speaking at the Mass I attended mentioned this, it both made me angry and broke my heart. When did we become a country mentioned in the same breath as nations known for oppression, human rights violations, and an environment hostile to freedom of conscience?We’ve all been fighting this battle against the coming darkness for quite some time, but something about this small, unassuming nun telling the parish that they would be forced to discontinue their care for the elderly poor, and even worse, to leave the country altogether, really drove it home. This is what it has come to. We are no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave. We have become something else.

This is not the America I grew up in. This is not the America I want for my children. I want to recommend a course of action, some concrete thing that people can do to put a stop to this madness, but like the relentless evil of legal abortion that came before it, there’s only so much that can humanly be done. The only thing for it is to keep praying, keep fighting, and keep teaching our children what America was, and should be again.

Please remember the Little Sisters of the Poor in your intentions, as well as the elderly poor in their care who have no place else to go. If you have the means to do so, I encourage you to support their efforts financially. The work they do is not only an essential corporal work of mercy, it is a bright spot in a dark and troubled world. It is my fervent hope that they will be able to continue to provide comfort, care, and aid to the elderly poor. What a tremendous blessing it is for them to be present at the hour of death for so many who would otherwise be alone, singing the Salve Regina, praying with the dying, and giving to them, as sister called it, “a celestial sendoff when God calls them home to Himself.”

Are abortion-inducing drugs or insulin more important?

That’s a question I have found myself asking in the last few weeks.  Last week, my family filed suit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  Using authority created by President Obama’s health care legislation, the Affordable Care Act, Kathleen Sebelius and other HHS officials have created an unjust, arbitrary mandate that violates my faith and common sense.

The HHS mandate requires my family, through the health care plans we provide to our associates, to pay for drugs, procedures, and counseling that violate our beliefs. These beliefs are founded not only in our faith but also in reason and what science tells us about when human life begins.

Even if you don’t share my beliefs, the mandate requires coverage for the wrong drugs and procedures.  It does nothing to decrease cost or improve access to drugs like insulin or heart medication and forces employers to pay the full cost of products like abortion-inducing drugs.  Why is the Obama administration prioritizing controversial life-ending drugs over life-saving drugs?

Unlike a Type 1 diabetic’s decision to continue using insulin, the decision to use contraception, sterilization, or abortion-inducing drugs is a personal choice.  These are purely elective services.  In fact, our plan already covers medically necessary contraception, that is, oral contraceptives prescribed to treat conditions like endometriosis.

Simply put, the mandate in the Affordable Care Act now compels me to offer, free of charge, non–medically necessary drugs and procedures that violate my religious beliefs.  If a diabetic has to pay co-pays and deductibles for insulin, is it truly just to force nearly all employers to provide free abortion-inducing drugs?

[The following is the video (television commercial) that Kennedy and CatholicVote produced to inform and educate voters about the lawsuit, and the HHS Mandate. It is currently running on television in 5 battleground television markets]:

When President Obama introduced the Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”) there was general confusion as to what implications it would have regarding abortions and tax dollars being spent on morally objectionable services. Yet, the situation became worse towards the end of 2011. That is when it became apparent that not only were abortion services going to be covered by the national health care plan, but that in fact all health insurance plans were going to be required to cover sterilization,  abortion-inducing drugs, and other morally objectionable services and medications due to the mandate by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The HHS mandate, as it has become known, was directed by Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. It requires all businesses and organizations (except for a very limited number that are exempt via a very narrow exception) to cover these services. At that point, several organizations filed suit, separate and distinct from the major lawsuit that was upheld this summer by the Supreme Court.

Most employers and Catholic organizations realized that there was no choice but to oppose the mandate on constitutional grounds, as it was morally repugnant to their religious beliefs. Most Catholics believe it is morally unacceptable to comply with the law, and therefore it must be challenged, rather than comply with it.

Fighting Back Against the HHS Mandate:

John Kennedy, CEO of Autocam (Grand Rapids, MI), is one of the brave business owners fighting back against the HHS Mandate. As a Catholic, the things mandated to be covered within the health care plans that John provides his associates are contrary to John’s deeply held religious beliefs. So John, together with CatholicVote, is fighting back.

On Monday, October 8th, 2012, John Kennedy, through the CatholicVote.org Legal Defense Fund, filed suit against the Department of Health and Human Services, and its Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (a Catholic). The purpose of the suit is to compel the court to strike down the mandate as unconstitutional.

John has also filmed a web-video and television advertisement that informs others about this fight. The video is being circulated to national media, will be featured on the CatholicVote.org website, and will air on television on several stations around the country between now and the election. (See the video below.)

The Origins of the Lawsuit:

Autocam employs over 1500 people world wide, and 680 people in the United States and offers top of the line health insurance that includes no-cost preventative services. Because of the HHS Mandate, John is being forced to choose between violating his Catholic faith by providing the HHS required services in his health plan or dropping coverage from his employees. Neither option is acceptable to John, and that is why he is filing suit.

Autocam Corp. v. Sebelius Resources & Information:

• Date Filed: October 8th, 2012
• Lawyers: CatholicVote.org Legal Defense Fund
• Attorneys for Plaintiffs: Patrick T. Gillen, Jason C. Miller
• Court & District: United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan – Southern Division
• Press Release: Filing of the Autocam Lawsuit (10/8/12)
• Catholic Entrepreneur Stands Against HHS Mandate (10/16/12)
• Press Contact: Dan Ohlson
• Legal Filings:
• Complaint: Autocam Corp., vs. Kathleen Sebelius, Dept. of Health and Human Services

How you can help:

The lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will be expensive. We need your help to make sure that John, his associates, and millions of other people across the country aren’t forced by the government to choose between doing the right thing and violating their religious beliefs.

Help us today and do your part to protect religious freedom!

Press & Media Coverage:

• Irish Rover (Notre Dame): ND Student’s family sues federal government – Michael Bradley (Oct. 27, 2012)
• National Review Online: John Kennedy vs. Obama – Kathryn Lopez (Oct. 11, 2012)
• Christian Post: Businessman Files Suit Over Obamacare Mandate, Cites Violation of Conscience - Myles Collier (Oct. 10, 2012)
• Daily Caller: Autocam CEO sues Sebelius over Obamacare mandate that violates ‘the sanctity of  human life’ – Samantha Schroeder (Oct. 9, 2012)
• Right to Life – Michigan: CEO of West Michigan company sues Obama over HHS Mandate – (Oct. 9, 20120)
• Inside Counsel: Obamacare faces another lawsuit over contraception – Alanna Byrne (Oct. 9, 2012)
• WZZM 13: Autocam owner joins lawsuit against ‘Obamacare’ – News (Oct. 9, 2012)
• Life News: Businessman on HHS Mandate: Violate My Conscience or Shut Down – Steven Ertelt (Oct. 9, 2012)
• Live Action News: New Companies File Suit against ObamaCare HHS Mandate, Citing Religious Discrimination – Jordan Hooker (Oct. 9, 2012)
• MLive.com: West Michigan CEO files lawsuit, saying he cannot comply with Obamacare on religious grounds – Jim Harger, (Oct. 8, 2012)
• MI Public Radio: CEO of West Michigan auto supplier sues feds over Affordable Care Act provisions – Lindsey Smith, (Oct. 8, 2012)
• Acton Blog: West MI CEO files lawsuit, cannot comply with Obamacare – Elise Hilton, (Oct. 8, 2012)
• Citizen Link: Another Secular Business Sues the Obama Administration – Bethany Monky (Oct. 8, 2012)
• WBAY  - ABC, Ch. 2: Crain’s Healthiest Employer Honors Go To Autocam – (Oct. 2, 2012)

This page is dedicated to Autocam’s lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services (Dept. HHS). The HHS Mandate went into effect on August 1st, 2012. The page will be updated as developments occur in the lawsuit, and as new information becomes available.

Catholics have a moral obligation to protest against the HHS mandate since it is a serious violation of religious liberty.  Those who have filed lawsuits are providing tremendous witness and service.  Nonetheless, once the HHS mandate goes into effect, since compliance with it would be material cooperation with evil done under duress and accompanied by serious harm to innocent persons, Catholic employers and individuals may morally comply with the HHS mandate that requires them to pay for health care plans that pay for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception.

The Question:

In July a Colorado judge granted an injunction that temporarily freed Hercules Industries, an HVAC company owned by a Catholic family, from paying for health care plans that cover abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception (hereafter AID-S-C), as required by the HHS mandate. The Newlands, owners of Hercules Industry, admirably and heroically chose to resist the HHS mandate by suing the government.

Do all Catholic employers need to do the same?  There are two types of Catholic employers affected by the mandate. There are apostolic institutions that generally bare the name “Catholic” or something equivalent (such as Catholic universities and hospitals) whose reason for being is to give witness to the faith.  I will not take up the question of the morality compliance with the HHS mandate of such organizations.  Rather I will focus on those Catholics who own business that are not established to bear witness to the faith, businesses such as manufacturing companies or law firms. I will call these “non-faith based” employers or NFB employers.  The question here is: would it be immoral for NFB employers to cooperate with the mandate?

Catholic individuals face a similar quandary.  Is it moral for them to pay into health care plans that pay for AID-S-C?

Certainly if they approved of paying for AID-S-C, their compliance would be immoral but what of those who do not approve?  Suppose they have done every reasonable thing to overturn the mandate and to protest the mandate and have failed to find suitable alternatives?  Would it be morally permissible for NFB employers to comply since they are likely to suffer severe consequences for noncompliance such as huge fines and possibly even going out of business, losing their own means of livelihood and endangering that of many others as well? (Several things may drive them out of business among them, a refusal to pay for healthcare may mean they would not be able to employ suitable individuals, or they may not be able to afford the penalties they would incur for non-compliance.) And there may be further harms, such as the employees needing to buy their own heath care and not being able to get the same quality they received with a group plan.

A Spectrum of Views:

Various Catholic theologians have posted essays on the internet registering their understanding of the morality of complying with the mandate for those NFB employers who accept the Church’s teaching on contraception.  I doubt that I have located all of the pieces but the following are, I believe, representative of the spectrum of views. All of the listed authors have some nuances to their positions but I hope I have represented them fairly:  Jenn Giroux reports on Cardinal Burke’s assessment that formal cooperation would be involved, Michael Pakaluk and Steve Long argue that any cooperation with the mandate would be formal cooperation; William Marshner also argues that it would be formal cooperation but proposes that the principle of double effect might justify some cooperation;  Colin Donovan argues against any cooperation by employers; Robert George and Sherif Girgis argue that the cooperation is material but seem to think the evil consequences that would result do not justify the material cooperation; Rev. Thomas Joseph White, O.P. and R.R. Reno argue that the cooperation is material but nonetheless seem to argue against it (it is not one of the options of response that they consider); Christian Brugger, Christopher Tollefsen and Jeff Mirus (separately) argue that the cooperation would be material and that the cooperation is remote enough to make it morally permissible;  a group of bioethicists at the National Catholic Bioethics Center argues that cooperation is material and that for a temporary period, employers may cooperate with it.

My Position:

Here I am going to argue that NFB Catholic employers and Catholic individuals as well have a responsibility to give reasonable resistance to the mandate as a violation of religious liberty, both before and after the mandate goes into effect.  Nonetheless, I am also going to argue that if required by law, Catholic employers and Catholic individuals may morally pay for health care plans that pay for AID-S-C.  Let me take up the second point first.

(There is a fair amount of disagreement about the meaning of the term “material cooperation with evil”, and a large amount of disagreement about its proper application.  I hope my use of the term is at least intelligible and consistent and that it captures rightly the true moral evaluation of various situations.)

The Act Performed:

Fist let us get a clear sense of the act being performed.  The employer is not going up to the counter of a pharmacy and purchasing an abortion-inducing drug for an employee.  He is not keeping a storeroom of contraceptives to which employees have ready access.  He is not keeping a surgeon on staff who will do sterilizations. He is paying for a health care plan that will pay for AID-S-C should the employee receive a prescription for such.  While often employers may have certainty that some employees will make use of such options, other employers may have full confidence that none of their employees will make use of them.  Since the employer does not intend that any of his employees use the services and since he does not directly make them available, I am confident that the cooperation is not formal but is justifiable material cooperation. (In a future column I will respond to Pakaluk’s and Long’s arguments that the cooperation is formal.)

Material Assistance vs. Cooperation with Evil:

Let us note that if a person who provides material assistance to wrong doers is cooperating with evil then God would be the biggest cooperator of all.  After all, God gives human beings everything we have and He has certain knowledge that we will use it for evil, even knowledge of how each particular individual will use things to do evil.  Parents would be cooperators with evil since they supply their children with everything they have; yet who would say that parents are materially cooperating in all the wrongdoing their children may do?  If someone rescues a known criminal from drowning, one he knows will go on engaging in criminal activity once rescued, the rescuer is not guilty of material cooperation in the future wrong doing of the criminal.

Indeed, all of us are in a position where we provide material assistance to wrongdoers.  Employers pay employees a salary and they know that some of them are going to use that money for immoral purposes, such as paying for abortions.  They may even know who is going to use the funds for abortion.  Employers should try to hire moral people and educate people to be moral, but the choices of how money is spent are not always under the moral purview of those who supply the money. Providing the material wherewithal that wrongdoers need is not always cooperation with evil.  People are responsible for their own choices.

Definition of Material Cooperation with Evil:

I am not prepared to make all the fine distinctions that should be made between simply providing material assistance that one owes another and engaging in material cooperation but it certainly seems there is a difference. Often paying taxes that go to pay for immoral actions is cited as an example of justifiable material cooperation with evil because it is so remote from the evil done.  I wonder if it is cooperation with evil at all when one is giving to others what is owed to them (and we do have a moral obligation to pay taxes).  Employees certainly often use their wages for immoral purposes but is the employer who paid the wages truly involved in cooperating with any of the evil done?  For again, if so, God and parents and someone rescuing a drowning criminal would all seem involved in cooperation with evil and it seems strange to say that God and those performing their duties are cooperating with the evil that might result from their deeds.

Alphonsus Liguori defined material cooperation as “that cooperation which concurs only with the bad action of the other, outside the intention of the cooperator.”  Again, I don’t know if that applies to the taxpayer or the employer paying wages for I don’t know if they are truly cooperating with the bad action of another.

It would seem to me that the transactions that more properly qualify as material cooperation are those in which the agent supplying the assistance does not owe the wrong-doer what is supplied. For instance, one who owns a lumberyard does not owe lumber to all those who come to purchase it from him. Were he to discover that someone purchasing supplies were going to use them to build an abortion clinic, his selling the supplies to the builder would seem to be material cooperation with evil.  Many factors would need to be taken into account to assess whether or not continued selling would be moral but the selling of supplies is material cooperation.

Whether or not I am correct about the distinctions between providing material assistance as a result of giving what is owed to another and providing material that one does not owe, may not make a great deal of difference in the analysis below but I believe we should work at getting a clearer understanding of precisely what constitutes material cooperation.

In general, we should take reasonable measures to avoid cooperation with evil; we should try to avoid situations that entail material cooperation and should resist cooperating when possible.  We should refuse to take any employment at abortion clinics, for instance.

Permissible or Justifiable Material Cooperation:

Nonetheless, material cooperation with evil is sometimes permitted.

Remoteness: For instance, we cannot possibly research the business practices of all those businesses we patronize and thus it is moral for us in general to shop without much worrying about whether companies pay unfair wages, treat their employees poorly, or donate to unworthy causes. Sometimes, of course, we may chose to investigate such matters or follow the lead of others who have investigated such matters, but in general our responsibility for cooperating with evil through our purchases is minimal.

Unreasonable burdens: It is also permissible when the burden involved in not cooperating is unreasonable.  For instance, one may not wish to purchase groceries from a grocery store owned by an abortionist since some of his profits may go to promoting his abortion business.  But if the grocery store is the only one in reasonable driving distance, it would be moral to shop there.

Duress: We are permitted to cooperate materially with evil even when the evil is serious if we or other innocent people would experience serious harm by refusing to cooperate.  These are said to be situations of duress.  Although one is physically and morally able to refuse to act, the duress can be sufficient to render one’s choice not fully free and justifiable.  Aristotle speaks about someone throwing goods over the side of a sinking ship.  The choice of the one throwing goods overboard is a mixture of freedom and duress, for he would not otherwise do so.  Another example would be the person being pressed to drive the getaway car for a bank robbery.  If one could do so without experiencing great harm, one should resist doing.  But one threatened with serious harm could morally drive a getaway car.  The driver would be more an additional victim of the crime rather than an accomplice.

Bundled Evil:

We should also note there is less culpability or none at all in cooperation with evil when the evil is “bundled” into some other act the cooperating agent must necessarily perform. The example of buying groceries from a grocery store owned by an abortionist serves here as well.  Some of the money we paid for cheerios might go to pay for advertising the abortion clinic but since we do not intend at all to fund abortions and since the amount of the money that goes to abortion is negligible, our shopping at the store is morally permissible.  Nonetheless, it would be good to attempt to attract another grocer to town; even better, it would be good to try to convert the owner away from doing abortions by persuasion, pray, sacrifice, and organized protests.

Again, I am not inclined to think that those who pay for taxes that pay for immoral practices are guilty of cooperation with evil, but if they were, it would be morally justifiable cooperation.  It is just and moral that we pay taxes. It is the legislators who decide how tax money is to be spent.  Our paying taxes that pay for immoral actions is not in itself immoral; rather the moral acts we exercise are in respect to the legislators who are elected. Nonetheless, some will conclude that in some instances they should refuse to pay taxes, not because the payment of taxes is immoral, but as a way of signaling their disapproval with how tax revenue is being allocated.

The Position of the National Catholic Bioethics Center Bioethicists:

As a basis for explaining my position I will comment on the statement of the bioethicists at the National Catholic Bioethics Center since it has a certain elevated status coming from a rightly very trusted and influential institution.

The NCBC bioethicists hold that there are three moral options open to employers. One they consider not very feasible since it involves not complying with the mandate but still supplying health care. That would involve crippling penalties and thus it is unrealistic to believe that any employer could continue to operate under the burdens of penalties and lawsuits.

The NCBC bioethicists believe the best option would be for employers to cease to offer health insurance but to provide employees with just compensation for them to purchase their own insurance plans.  They acknowledge that it would be difficult to pay the employees enough to find comparable benefits (since discounts are available for the group plan paid for by the employer).  This option shifts the moral burden to the employees.  The NCBC bioethicists think the employers would only be involved in remote material cooperation with evil through these payments to employees that will go to health care plans that pay for AID-S-C. They do not address the question of the degree of cooperation engaged in by the employees who must now purchase health care plans that pay for AID-S-C.

The NCBC bioethicists also allow that it would be moral for Catholic employers to comply temporarily with the mandate, until January 2014 when individuals will be able to purchase health care from insurance exchanges.  They hold that the cooperation would be “licit mediate material cooperation” and they find that “To avoid putting underinsured employees at substantial risk when fair compensation is not feasible is a sufficiently weighty reason to tolerate cooperation through January 2014.”  At that point the question of the morality of cooperation with evil would pass to individuals who would need to purchase a health care plan, and all of those would involve paying for AID-S-C.

I agree that all the above options are moral though I would like to argue that compliance past January 2014 is morally permissible primarily because I think the cooperation is sufficiently remote and that the harms that come from compliance are outweighed by the benefits.  Refusing to engage in that remote cooperation amounts to  passing on the moral dilemma to one’s employees and also of likely increasing health care costs for one’s employers.

The NCBC bioethicists make no argument to justify their claim that complying with the mandate is mediate material cooperation.  They distinguish it from “remote” material cooperation.  I believe that remote cooperation is a kind of mediate cooperation and that it might be better to distinguish various kinds of mediate cooperation, such as proximate and remote cooperation.   Both may be justified on occasion. Whether the cooperation with the HHS mandate is labeled “mediate” or “remote”, it is of sufficient distance from the evil done to be tolerable in pursuit of other goods.

I will also argue that private individuals may purchase health care plans that pay for AID-S-C.  Their cooperation, like that of employers, is also of sufficient distance from the evil to be done to be tolerable for the reason of having health care.

Mediate Cooperation:

Let me further discuss what mediate cooperation is.  The word “mediate” indicates that the number of “steps” or “acts of the will” between what the cooperating agent supplies and what the primary agent does is very determinative  of whether or not  the cooperation is justifiable.  The morally good person would take reasonable steps to avoid cooperating with evil at almost any distance but there are many occasions in life where the distance between one’s material action and the action of the primary agent is great enough that one does not share culpability in the action. The reason mediate material moral cooperation is sometimes permissible is that there are additional acts of the will that need to take place between what the cooperating agent does and the primary agent does.   Thus the cooperating agent cannot be said to will what the primary agent wills.   The more inessential and remote one’s action is from what the primary agent wills and the greater duress there is, the more permissible the cooperation is.

Yet, simply because cooperation with evil is material and remote enough to justify participating in an activity does not mean that individuals should be indifferent about engaging in action that is associated with evil action.  For instance, someone who delivers pizza to employees at an abortion clinic is far removed from the action of the abortionist.   The work of the cleaning crew of an abortion clinic is far removed from the abortion but more connected to the abortion than the pizza delivery person.  Someone who schedules abortions at an abortion clinic is not directly and immediately involved in performing abortions but is obviously much more a part of the chain of activities that lead to the abortion.  Prolife individuals would not want to be involved in any of the above activities, especially being the scheduler, in great part because of the scandal/hypocrisy/inauthenticity involved and for those reasons it may be immoral for them to do such jobs.  But the wrong that the pizza delivery person and the cleaning crew are doing is not morally culpable cooperation with evil; it is more properly giving scandal. The scheduler is quite “close” to the abortion and thus the cooperation would rarely be justifiable.

Applying the Principles to the Mandate:

The above discussion should help us answer the question of the morality of employers paying for health care plans that pay for abortion inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception.

First, it seems to me that the payment for health care can legitimately be understood to be part of an employee’s salary or compensation.  The employer is paying a sum of money, earned by the employee, for a health care plan that will pay for AID-S-C.   Just as an employee who is free to do what he or she wishes with money earned, so an employee is free to do with the health care plan what he or she wishes.  The employer is acting as a “conduit” for the employee’s money.  He is not using his own money to pay for AID-S-C; he is simply making it possible for the employee to use his or her money for AID-S-C.

Second, any cooperation with evil involved is mediate and of considerable distance from the evil deed itself.  As mentioned above, the employer is not going to the pharmacy to purchase abortion-inducing drugs or going to the hospital to pay for a sterilization for someone; he is not keeping a storeroom of contraceptives or a doctor in his employ who will do sterilizations.   Indeed, there are many “acts of the will” that must take place before the evil is performed.  The primary agent must go to a doctor; the doctor must prescribe the abortion–inducing drug or order the procedure of sterilization; the primary agent must go to a pharmacy and purchase the abortion-inducing drug; the primary agent must use what has been purchased or show up for the procedure.  This seems to me to be material cooperation that is quite distant from the evil that is being done.

Third, mediate cooperation with evil is justified if there is sufficient duress and harm threatened.  There is a sense in which the HHS mandate is an act of holding a gun to the head of employers or it can be seen as a kind of tax; they are being forced or coerced into paying for something that they object to, at the threat of considerable harm.  I think for the purposes of supplying their employees with affordable health care it is permissible for them to pay for the health care plans that pay for AID-S-C.  Moreover, I think the same arguments make it permissible for private individuals to purchase health care plans that pay for AID-S-C.

There are also some goods that should be factored into the equation. Those NFB Catholic employers who are being pressured into paying for health care insurance that pays for immoral procedures now have a good motivation for trying to educate their employees about those procedures. It would be wise for them to hold seminars and distribute materials that explain both the physical harms of such procedures and why the employer has moral objections to them and why he is continuing to seek to have the mandate overturned.  Since virtually everyone who would take advantage of the services provided for by the mandate, would have had recourse to them anyway, the fact that the employer pays for a health care plan that pays for them is unlikely to increase the incidence of the procedures.

What is the Fuss About?

So some might ask, what is all the fuss about if it is moral for Catholic employers to pay for health care plans that pay for AID-S-C?  There are several reasons Catholics should resist:  1)  in general we should resist cooperating with evil 2) we should certainly resist when serious scandal is involved; that is when we are pressured to engage in activity that compromises our ability to give witness to our beliefs, and 3) we should resist when other great goods, such as religious liberty, are involved.  In this instance, the mandate is a part of a pattern of increasing suppression of religion in this country and thus it deserves zealous opposition.  Our bishops have been marvelous leaders in this regard.

First, Catholics are being pressured to support something they believe to be wrong – use of abortion-inducing drugs, sterilizations, contraception.  Even if it is moral for Catholics to do so under duress, that does not mean we should not resist.  Just as the individual who is forced to drive a bank robber to the bank, should resist if he can, so should we all resist cooperating with evil when we can.

Secondly, our failure to offer reasonable resistance to cooperating with evil when we can causes scandal.  Even if it is only remote cooperation with evil to pay for AID-S-C, to do so without protesting would suggest to others that we think AID-S-C are moral.  If we cooperate without protest to what we oppose that will undercut our witness to the truths we believe.   We would be guilty of causing scandal or leading others into sin.

Thirdly, the fuss, as the bishops have said all along, is primarily about the violation of religious liberty.  That is why such employers as the owners of Hobby Lobby have filed a lawsuit against the mandate.  The mandate not only requires Catholic employers to pay for AID-S-C, it defines who can exercise their freedom of religion in respect to practices a religion finds immoral.  Only employers who employ members of their own faith and serve members of their own faith would have the freedom to refuse to support practices they find immoral.  Already Catholics have been prevented from helping rescue women and children from sexual trafficking and from providing adoption services because the state refuses to recognize freedom of conscience.  The reason so many non-Catholics have joined the bishops in their resistance to the mandate is that they see the mandate as a violation of religious liberty. In our country today it is necessary that we offer very strong resistance to any violation of religious liberty.  The forces trying to impose a very secular agenda on religious people are extremely powerful.

[For earlier posts I have written about the mandate, see: "If only our Bishops had thought to consult David Gibson" (Catholicvote.org) and "Religious Liberty, Blood Transfusion, Cigarettes and Contraception" (National Catholic Register, 3/11/12)]

Resist Anyway?

Sometimes individuals will refuse to engage in actions that involve even very remote cooperation with evil because it is strategically wise to do so.  Witness the behavior of many who refuse to purchase products from an establishment that endorses immoral causes; while purchasing a product may involve very remote cooperation with evil, they want to use their refusal to patronize such an establishment as a way of getting the establishment to change its practices and even more importantly to lead the culture to cease endorsing immoral causes.  When such individuals ban together in their protest or boycott, they can often bring about favorable change.

Sometimes we may want to refuse to cooperate with evil even when such cooperation would not be sinful because we want to call attention to a certain evil or when other goods would also be compromised were we to cooperate.  The violation of religious liberty involved in cooperating with the mandate is a very serious evil.  Many Catholics may find that they have the means to challenge the mandate and relieve themselves and others of the burden of cooperating with it.  Catholics, such as the Newlands, may decide to go to great expense to fight the mandate because they want to give powerful witness to the evils it allows and they want to protect religious liberty.

For my part, I hope that that those Catholic employers who cannot find a suitable alternative to the mandate will find an effective way to protest.  Those effective ways may involve not complying with the mandate.  How to best overturn the mandate is a matter of prudential judgment.  I believe, however, that the choice to comply with the mandate neither involves employers with formal cooperation or unjustifiable material cooperation.

It will, however, be followed by what I’m most interested in: Cardinal Dolan’s closing prayer. THAT. could be the highlight of the conventions season if the Dems continue their anti-God, anti-Jerusalem, anti-life, anti-woman, anti-religious liberty ways.

But before you listen to Obama, or even after (if you bother), you owe it to your Catholic martial spirit to check out this homily by the normally reserved Most Reverend Gilbert Sheldon, bishop emeritus of Steubenville, delivered here at Franciscan University at the Mass in Finnegan Field House held at the beginning of this year’s new student orientation—the Mass at which new faculty and administrators took the Oath of Fidelity to the Magisterium.

His Excellency’s delivery was staid and straightforward as ever, but his content was, to put it mildly, stirring. You can watch it here, with the transcript below.

The text, as delivered, with my emphases:

A year ago I had the privilege of addressing this assembly and receiving the Oath of Fidelity on behalf of the Church. I thought it would be the last time that I would have the honor of doing this in this august event. However, due to the inscrutable processes of episcopal appointments, I stand before you again.

Last year I pointed out that we are in a culture war. A war that is reducible to, on the one hand, one between those who believe in a Supreme Being who created us, who has a definite plan for our well-being now and into eternity, and to whom we are responsible; and on the other hand, those who believe in themselves as supreme beings and architects of their own destiny, with responsibility only to themselves. In their view there is no such thing as right and wrong, there is only individual choice. One choice is as good as another, and if there is a conflict between choices the choice of the majority prevails. I call attention this time to the latest battle that has been joined in that culture war: the battle for religious freedom.

A call to arms has been issued on behalf of believers by the Catholic bishops of the United States. Our antagonists are the liberal secularists in government and elsewhere, who would erode away our religious freedom. They’ve just won the first skirmish in that battle—the acceptance by the U.S. Supreme Court as constitutional the comprehensive health plan offered by the present administration in Washington.

Pope Benedict said in his statement recently to American bishops, quote, “once more we see the need for an engaged, articulate, and well-informed laity, endowed with a strong critical sense, and with courage to counter a reductive secularism which would delegitimize the Church’s participation in public debate.” The Pope’s words are reflected in the battle plan that has been outlined by the U.S. bishops committee on religious liberty. It calls for study, catechesis, and prayer.

Prayer is the equipment of all believers. Study and education are further arms that we must furnish them—that is, you as faculty members, I and my colleagues from the pulpit. The high spots of the bishops’ call should be familiar to us all. It points out specific efforts in the federal and state level to curtail our religious freedom. And among them, for example, first of all would be the requirement we’ve already mentioned in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It requires that organizations offering health insurance to their employees must provide for contraception and, by implication, abortion, as so-called “reproductive health services,” or otherwise face substantial fines.

In the state of Alabama, for example, there was an effort to forbid services of any kind including spiritual services to undocumented immigrants. In effect it treats these people as worse than wartime enemies, to whom any aid and comfort is considered treasonous. It would forbid a priest from administering the Last Rights to an undocumented immigrant.

There was an effort in the state of Connecticut to intrude into the internal government of the Church by reintroducing the flawed practice of trusteeism.

And in some state universities there is an attempt to force religious organizations on campus to open their membership to all individuals, including those with contrary religious or moral convictions.

And finally there was a requirement by several states that Catholic social service agencies offer services contrary to their own stated religious and moral principles, for example in adoption and counseling services.

This secular liberal agenda would redefine the First Amendment to the Constitution so as to restrict Freedom of Religion to Freedom of Worship. And that distinction is crucial. The Bill of Rights reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Freedom of worship would restrict religious practice to worship services, presumably done in a house of worship or in private. However, the exercise of religion derives from religion itself and its own definition of its activities.

Christianity, and Catholicism in particular, includes a great many activities which are public. Not the least of which is bringing the Gospel to non-believers.

The secularist opposes any public religious display, whether public prayer or in the display of a religious symbol.

And of course we have a taste of this here in Steubenville as a proposed logo for the city is being attacked, incidentally by a group from another state, because it includes a well-known landmark—the chapel here at Franciscan University. The objection, supposedly, is that it is an involvement by the city government in religion. So how ridiculous can you get?

Our Founding Fathers were very much aware of the public dimension of religion. George Washington, in his famous farewell speech said, quote, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” He well understood that lending support to religious and moral principles must be made part of the public and political discourse. Something to which the liberal secularist is very allergic. Like many of the Founding Fathers, Washington was a deist, who derived his philosophy from John Locke. Locke, himself not a Christian, however, believed in natural law—a concept that’s firmly embedded in Catholic moral theology. The current liberal secularists would have us believe that human rights are conferred on its citizens by the State, much like welfare. But that’s not what the Declaration of Independence says. Quoting again, “we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that all are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. That among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The Constitution of the United States guarantees that statement in the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights which we heard before.

This call to arms by the Catholic bishops implies, if need be, civil disobedience. However, it is not saying, “if this be treason, let us make the most of it.” Civil disobedience is not disloyalty to one’s country. It is, and especially in this case, a form of patriotism, that calls upon the government to be true to the Constitution and to walk the narrow line that the Constitution lays out for it. Nor should the loyalty of Catholics in the United States ever be called into question. The blood that Catholics have shed through all the wars in past history speaks loud and clear. And admittedly there were only a handful of Catholics that fought in the American Revolution but by World War II fully a third—one out of three—men and women in uniform had “C” for “Catholic” on their identification tags—the so-called “dog tags.”

Civil disobedience is in fact a virtue when it opposes unjust law, as is the case here. Let me quote a well-known proponent of opposition to unjust law. He said, quote, “I would agree with St. Augustine that an unjust law is no law at all. Now what is the different between the two? How does one determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in terms of St. Thomas Aquinas, ‘an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.’” You might be wondering what pope said that. It was no pope at all: it was Martin Luther King.

Coincidentally, or, perhaps, not so coincidentally, this battle will be contemporaneous with the Year of Faith that Pope Benedict announced; and the year of faith begins, also, marking the 20th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Again: coincidence, or divine providence?

The year of faith and the Catechism give us the logistical support that our battle requires for the faithful and for us to use. The year of faith is a call to prayer; the Catechism is an ideal tool for presenting the Catholic position. All that is needed now is the will to use them to fight. May God bless us in our struggle.”

A republic means the people rule through their elected representatives. Laws are written in the deliberative bodies of Congress. Laws are enforced by the President and the necessary officers of the executive branch. Laws are interpreted by the judiciary.

A republic does not mean unelected bureaucrats get to tinker with laws to see how much liberty they can snatch away before the courts stop them.

And yet, that is exactly what is happening with the HHS mandate. The mandate was written under the authority of Obamacare, which Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid passed with a shocking dearth of actual policy details for what all those new agencies and panels should do. That was by design—they had to keep the details vague lest the law be even more unpopular and even the ugly, underhanded trick they used to jam it through be unavailable. No worries: they left all those details to the HHS to write. Spectacular.

The original mandate, announced last fall and made law in February of this year, dictates that all health insurance plans must cover abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization procedures, and contraceptives. The mandate was met with such a backlash from anyone who cares about religious liberty that the Obama administration came as close as it ever has to admitting a mistake—they issued what they considered a rather good compromise.

Of course, the compromise and later “accommodation” essentially amounted to, in Cardinal Dolan’s excellent phrasing, “giving us a year to figure out how to violate our consciences.” In other words, they delayed the full flowering of the problem without uprooting it.

Lawsuits were filed, including by my employer, Franciscan University of Steubenville. The administration, naturally, does not want this thing to be litigated, so rather than argue the merits of the case they have filed motions to have the cases tossed out of court.

They claim two things primarily: Firstly that the lawsuits do not at present have merit because thus far the mandate has not gone into effect for the plaintiffs, so no actual injury has been incurred. I heard one person describe this argument as the administration basically saying, “hey, sure you’re walking through a minefield, but it isn’t like you’ve gone ‘BOOM!’ yet!” Further, the University of Notre Dame, who filed a lawsuit similar to that filed by Franciscan University and 41 other Catholic institutions on May 21, has claimed immediate harm from the HHS mandate, which, if the judge agrees, puts the lie to this argument by the administration. Secondarily the administration claims that the lawsuits are inappropriate because they have issued and will issue further accommodations.

Indeed, the administration has made a succession of small adjustments to the mandate—adjustments that have caused a couple of the lawsuits to be tossed, in particular those by Belmont Abbey College and Wheaton College.

And that, folks, is the crux of the matter.

A few officials in the White House and the HHS wrote rules in accordance with the hard-left ideology they cherish concerning “women’s reproductive health” (a horrid euphemism for the anti-human practices it encompasses). These officials did not debate the laws in Congress or any other open forum; they did not hold a vote on them available for public scrutiny; and these officials are not subject to voters and reelection. They simply wrote this law which ignores the conscience rights of millions of Americans because they wanted to. But then it gets worse.

Now that the rule is being credibly challenged in court by more than a dozen separate lawsuits filed by some of the most powerful law firms and dedicated defense funds on behalf of 50 or so of the nation’s most recognizable Catholic and other Christian institutions they are simply tweaking the rule on the fringes in various ways to try to appease the plaintiffs, or at least find the magic combination of words that will get the judges to toss the various lawsuits. But since there is more than one lawsuit in more than one court making slightly different arguments, the administration peeps have to continuously make changes to the law based on the different scenarios. A patchwork of tweaks and accommodations.

Folks, this is not the commissioner of your fantasy football league unilaterally changing the way trades are approved during the season—this is the federal government curtailing one of our foundational liberties, severely and brazenly, and then simply rewriting the law by executive fiat more than once to see how much it can get away with.

Executive fiat is not how a republic handles such a foundational liberty as the free exercise of religion. This is the behavior of a tyranny.

In case you have not already seen the video, Romney said in Ohio:

Religious liberty — our first freedom of those enumerated in the Bill of Rights. And the president and his administration said they are going to usurp your religious freedom by demanding that you provide products to your employees, if you’re the Catholic Church, that violates your own conscience.
And so whether it’s a Catholic businessperson or the Catholic Church itself they’re being told what they have to do that violates their religious conscience. That attack on religious freedom I think is a dangerous and unfortunate precedent.
And I know we’re not all Catholic in this room. Many presumably are. But I feel that we’re all Catholic today. In our battle to preserve religious freedom and tolerance and freedom in this country, it is essential for us to push back against that.

The comments were well received — if you consider a standing ovation a warm reception. It was followed by a “Say it again” from the audience after applause. “I will say it again,” Romney said. “That’s one more good reason to get rid of Obamacare. And I’m going to get that done the first day I’m in office.”

This was not his first comment on the HHS Mandate religious-liberty fight, but his strongest, most spirited yet.

Romney’s “We’re all Catholics” comment on Wednesday could not have been better timed. It was the same day that evangelical Wheaton College joined the Catholic University of America in suing the federal government in Washington D.C. federal district court.

It’s worth pointing out that Romney is not a latter-day defender of religious liberty, having come up against ideological challenges to it while he was governor of Massachusetts. His comments Wednesday serve as a reminder that this election matters in ways that run much deeper than what party is in the White House.

The House of Representatives has been a powerhouse of attention to this issue, with Nebraska Republican Jeff Fortenberry in the lead, with an ecumenical, bipartisan coalition supporting his conscience-rights legislation. Speaker of the House John Boehner has insisted that the “If the president does not reverse the Department’s attack on religious freedom, then the Congress, acting on behalf of the American people and the Constitution we are sworn to uphold and defend, must.” That would be a lot more possible to do with a Senate that would support him and a president who would sign conscience protection.

Do we value religious liberty as we have or not? That’s the choice.